A review by bookishaddictions
Across Ancient Sands: Uncovering a Bronze Age journey around the Mediterranean Sea by Eric Horn

adventurous challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

3.5

I would like to start by thanking Eric for helping me snag a free copy of his book for me to review; he reached out to me quite a while ago, and I’ve been slowly working my way through the text. I’ll be honest, my first impression was that the cover looked like that of a dull history textbook- but this story was not that. The novel follows along with two archaeologists and their students as they work to uncover hidden historical gems in what I believe was the African desert. As the archaeologists uncovered the story of a (possibly real?) historical figure, they are learning of an overlap between cultures that were not previously believed to have interacted with one another. I’m not certain how much of this story is historical accurate- I have a degree in English, not history- but you will learn as the story continues. I will say that the thing that took the story from 4⭐️ to 3.5 for me was how little we learn about the characters. I could picture the stories the characters learned about clearly, but it was very difficult to really see the actual characters as individuals. This book would be great for someone that’s a fan of archeology or a history buff, but it was lacking the humanistic component for me. Overall, I found myself entertained despite my struggling to connect with the text. I would recommend this book to those that loved history class or had those childhood dreams of discovering ancient relics